Through another's eyes

Tuesday

Some people choose a career and stick to it. Others go along in one direction and then switch tracks, surprising even themselves with where they end up. For Wendy Morgan, CEO of VR Training Solutions, it’s been a bit of both.

First, she was a middle-school teacher in the South. “I spent my whole career in the classroom teaching in inner-city Atlanta. It was kind of eye opening,” Morgan reveals. “As a new teacher ... there’s really no one there to help you, and you can make some bad decisions. But I would say that’s where the seeds for this started.”

However, the this she refers to, Educational Equity VR, was a few years off.

From teaching in secondary schools, Morgan moved into higher education at the University of Oregon’s extension office — still a career in education, but now her focus was on developing an online professional development program for teachers, as well as training for student teachers.

“I did a lot of research,” Morgan admits. She found that an engaging online program would be better than anything else that was out there, and so she created an environment where teachers could interact through reading and activities. “It was going like gangbusters,” she says of the program; despite that, she learned, her position would no longer be funded.

Good thing Morgan was keeping her eye on the rapidly growing field of educational technology. She was interested in the integration of technology in educational training with the goal of creating equity for students.

One example of inequity in the classroom is the presence of implicit bias. Implicit bias is the attitudes or stereotypes that any individual brings to a situation or interaction; such bias affects how we understand what’s happening and the decisions and actions we make in response to the situation. Teachers, for example, can bring implicit bias into the classroom, affecting how they respond to students from various walks of life.

“I’ve always loved to be innovative,” Morgan admits. Virtual reality, in particular, interested Morgan, because of its ability to create a “feels real” experience.

The seeds sown from way back as a teacher in Atlanta sprouted an idea: to create a virtual reality training program that would tackle implicit bias.

Morgan applied for grant funding.

“The idea that I initially came up with was for police-force training,” admits Morgan, who was influenced by the experiences her grandfather had as a police officer in Atlanta. “But when I applied for the grants, I realized that in order to make something that I could show works, I needed to go with what I’m familiar with. So I went to education.”

Bingo.

She landed grants in August 2018, one from Mozilla Gigabit and another from US Ignite.

With this startup money, things have moved quickly. Morgan founded a company called Treadwell Ventures, then turned to Vance Naegle of Glimmer Technology (see story on Page 3) and to the University of Oregon’s Center for Equity Promotion to help her achieve her “proof of concept”: In a virtual classroom, teachers could face their implicit biases head on, and learn better ways to respond to a variety of interactions with students.

In a few short months, Treadwell Ventures has been renamed VR Training Solutions, or VRTS for short. And now?

“I’m a first-time CEO,” Morgan says. “It’s been an incredible journey. Having a traditional career, and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh, I am in a startup and this is the most exciting and fascinating, scary thing I’ve ever done.’ ”

Inside the VR classroom

Scary and exciting though it may be, Morgan and her team are on to something.

Put on the VR headset, and suddenly you’re standing in front of a middle-school classroom. Several students aren’t paying attention. Pencils stick to the ceiling. One student calls out to interrupt. Or a siren sounds loudly, drawing all of the teens’ attention to the window. There’s even a whiteboard for the teacher to write on.

“The students do move around,” Morgan explains. “But the facilitator can modify what happens in the classroom. We prompt the different disruptions or taunts in the classroom. Those are the things that the teacher has to teach through. We’re trying to see if any of the students are called out more based on who they are.”

The product Morgan and Naegle are developing is not for consumers, but is targeted for educators, specifically large educational entities such as school districts, state universities, etc. “Everyone — the teachers, the school districts, the powers that be — everyone is recognizing that if you use technology in the right way, it can actually be an incredible asset.”

Picture a group of teachers and one facilitator. Everyone is working with the same VR equipment, which VRTS provides. The participants could be located anywhere in the country, and the facilitator could be in yet another place, but by way of VR, they would all be in the same virtual classroom together, interacting. One participant takes on the role of the teacher. The rest come into the environment as students.

“So they will inhabit the body of someone who is completely different from them,” Morgan explains, “whether socio-economic status, gender, their ethnicity. And they can experience what it’s like to be that person.”

Teachers, especially those who have not had the benefit of years of experience in the classroom, can make mistakes, “the kind of mistakes that you wish you could rewind and undo, but the impact is done,” Morgan says. “In VR it’s not; you can literally redo without having impacted anyone. The teachers can analyze their own choices under stress. So that when they go back into the real classroom, they’ll make a different choice.”

“Because it’s extremely important,” Morgan adds, “to stop taking away a child’s potential by making a wrong choice in the way to discipline them.”

Out of the classroom, into the world

July is the target date for the finished product, with the goal of it being used by schools in the 2019-20 school year. Sales have already begun, and it’s exciting, allows Morgan, who is in contact with New York City schools, for one. “The potential for growth is great.”

Even beyond education, the potential is there. “We are already beginning to segue into my initial idea, police-force training. We are moving into that direction much more quickly than we thought.” Local police agencies have shown interest in at least meeting with Morgan to learn about what VR Training Solutions has already created.

Through it all, Morgan wakes up feeling the butterflies in her stomach every day. “I think I always will. This Educational Equity VR was the out-of-the-gate project, but there is so much more. Every day I wake up with a new idea. But I have to remind myself to focus on one thing.”

Christine Sherk can be contacted at csherk@registerguard.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Register-Guard ~ 3500 Chad Drive, Suite 600, Eugene, OR 97408 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service